Jesus Explains It All

The message given Easter Sunday evening, April 4, 2021, in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Luke 24:13-49.

            It’s the first Easter Sunday evening.  They did not call it that, of course.  They did not call it anything, really.  The women had gone into the tomb in the morning, and found it empty.  They had been told that Jesus had risen.  But--what did that mean, really?  

Had Jesus really risen from the dead?  Was he really alive?  Was it possible?  Yes, he had said he’d be able to do this, but--could it actually be true?  Or was this some sort of a trick on the part of the Romans, or the Pharisees?  Were they just trying to fool Jesus’ followers into thinking Jesus was alive, so they’d come out of hiding and the soldiers could arrest them, just like they’d arrested Jesus?

            And if Jesus was alive, well, what did that mean?  Was Jesus going to resume his ministry?  Were they going to start traveling with him again?  Was he going to go back to healing people and driving out demons and doing all that stuff he had done before?  Or this time, having conquered death, would he raise an army and battle the Romans and restore the nation of Israel to its former glory?  Was this going to be the kingdom of Israel reborn?

            Everybody was in a state of confusion.  Nobody knew what was going to happen.  For that matter, nobody really even knew what had happened.  

            Luke has just told us about the discovery of the empty tomb.  Now, the scene shifts.  It’s later in the day.  Two guys are walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, which we’re told was seven miles away.  That sounds like a long walk to us, but of course people were used to walking everywhere back then.  It was probably no big deal to them.

            These two guys are walking along, talking about what happened.  We’re told that one of them was named Cleopas.  We don’t know anything about him, other than his name.  But that’s better than his friend, because we’re not even told the other guy’s name.  He’s simply “Not Cleopas”, I guess.

            They were not among the Twelve Disciples, the inner circle, but they apparently were followers of Jesus and were acquainted with the disciples.  They refer to Jesus as “a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people.”  And they refer to the disciples who went to see the empty tomb as “our companions”.  They’re also described as being downcast about Jesus’ death.  

            Jesus shows up, but they don’t know it’s Jesus.  They tell Jesus what’s happened, not knowing that he obviously knew all about it.  And then Jesus starts explaining it all to them.  It says, “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

            When Jesus leaves, they realize who this was they’d been talking to.  They go find the remaining eleven disciples, minus Judas of course, and tell them about it.

            And Jesus shows up again!  And we’re told, “He opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.”

            You know, recently one of my confirmation students asked why Jesus does not explain things more.  So many times he spoke in parables or in figures of speech.  He’d answer questions with questions.  Why did Jesus not just come out and say what he meant?  Why did Jesus not just say what he had to say and make everything clear to us?

            It’s a good question.  It’s one that a lot of us have probably wondered about at one time or another.  We assume Jesus had reasons for the way he did things, and we assume they were good reasons.  

            We could speculate about it.  Maybe Jesus did not explain things because we would not understand them.  I mean, think of all the times Jesus did try to explain things to the disciples and they did not understand.  And in fact, in John Sixteen, Twelve, just before Jesus is going to the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus says that he has more to say the disciples, but they would not be able to handle it.  So maybe that’s why Jesus did not explain things--he knew it would do no good anyway.

            Or, maybe Jesus did not explain things because he knew we would not accept them.  There were times that happened with the disciples, too.  In Matthew Sixteen, Jesus tells the disciples he’s going to be killed, and Peter says no, that’s not going to happen.  Think how that must have made Jesus feel--I’m the divine Son of God, I’m telling you what’s going to happen, and you’re arguing with me?  So maybe Jesus decided there was no point explaining things if people were going to argue with him about it.

            But whatever the reason is, there are times Jesus did not explain.  But here, he did.  He explained it all.  He explained it to Cleopas and Not Cleopas.  He explained it to the eleven disciples.  All of it.  He started with all the great prophets going back to Moses.  He explained how all this stuff that had happened hundreds of years ago was pointing to him.  And he opened their minds, so that they could understand everything he was saying to them.

            That would be such an awesome thing.  To have Jesus explain everything to you.  And to be able to understand it all.  Maybe that’s one of the things that happens in heaven.  Maybe in heaven you have everything explained to you, and you have all your questions answered, and it all suddenly makes sense.  Or maybe, in heaven, you feel such joy and peace in the presence of God that none of it matters anymore.  I don’t know.  But still, it would be an awesome thing to have Jesus himself answer all your questions and making everything about life clear to you.  I think that’s something we’d all love.

            But you know, there’s another way to look at this.  There’s a quote attributed to Mark Twain that goes, “It’s not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand that bother me.  It’s the parts that I do understand.”

            We have a lot of questions about the Bible, and that’s fine.  There’s nothing wrong with asking questions.  It’s natural to want to know more and to understand more.  But at the same time, nowhere in the Bible does the Lord say, “You must understand everything.”  What we’re told, over and over again, is that we should trust.  That we should have faith.  That we should believe.

            When it came to telling us how we should live, Jesus made it simple.  Love one another.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Love even your enemies.  Pray for those who persecute you.  

There’s nothing complicated about that.  What happens is that we complicate it.  We complicated because, while those things are simple, they can be really hard for us to do.  We don’t want to do them.  And so we make excuses.  We claim we don’t understand, to avoid having to do what Jesus said.  And we look for loopholes, to avoid obeying Jesus’ commands.        Too often, we’re like the expert in the law who Jesus talked to.  When Jesus said love your neighbor, he said, “Well, who is my neighbor?”  He wanted an excuse.  He did not really want to have to love his neighbor, and so he was looking for a way to narrow things down.  He was looking for a loophole.  And too many times, so do we.

There may be parts of the Bible we don’t understand, but there are plenty of parts we do.  There are plenty of things that Jesus made simple.  So let’s stop complicating them.  So, on this Easter Sunday night, let’s stop making excuses.  And let’s stop looking for loopholes.  Let’s not worry so much about the parts of the Bible we don’t understand.  Instead, let’s focus on obeying the parts of the Bible we do understand.  And let’s start by doing the simple things Jesus told us to do.  Let’s love God and love our neighbor.  Let’s love even our enemies.  Let’s simply, as Jesus said, love one another.

            It would be awesome to have Jesus sit down and explain all the scriptures to us.  It would be awesome to have Jesus open our minds, so that we could understand it all.  Maybe that will happen someday.  But unless and until it does, I think Jesus would like us to focus on the things Jesus said that we do understand.  Live according to those things.  Trust God.  Be faithful to God.  Serve God.  Love God.  Love one another.  Feel that love and show that love with all of our heart.  With all of our mind.  With all of our soul.  With all of our strength.  And don’t just do that once in a while.  Do it all the time.  Every day.  Day after day after day.

            If we do those things, we just might find that our faith is not all that hard to understand after all.